Advanced Fission

[kilemall]

If Neutron Dampers can inhibit or induce neutron shedding, couldn't they be used to create an advanced fission technology?


Inhibited, the reactor is shut down, scrammed and fuel preserved.

Induced in a controlled manner and directed to controlled fission, the reactor could output more neutrons and thus more fission then 'naturally', and so U-238 could be used without processing and more fission generated out of less initial fuel (but maybe refueling more often).

Out there or reasonable? Play opportunities?

My initial thought is this is just the sort of thing for fighters that live fast and die young, being able to ramp up EP to power those lasers but running through fuel fast.

 

[mike wightman]

Should be doable.

 

[whulorigan]

If Neutron Dampers can inhibit or induce neutron shedding, couldn't they be used to create an advanced fission technology?


Inhibited, the reactor is shut down, scrammed and fuel preserved.

Induced in a controlled manner and directed to controlled fission, the reactor could output more neutrons and thus more fission then 'naturally', and so U-238 could be used without processing and more fission generated out of less initial fuel (but maybe refueling more often).

Out there or reasonable? Play opportunities?

I'd say that is a given.

My initial thought is this is just the sort of thing for fighters that live fast and die young, being able to ramp up EP to power those lasers but running through fuel fast.

The question would be, would it be worth the effort to do, once fusion (hot or cold, and/or damper-mediated) is available? At what TL would damper-induced/mediated fission be a practical power source compared to other options, and by what TL would it become obsolete?

 

[kilemall]

Well, I'd say that such a setup should be fairly cheap on the reactor side, not space saving per se (I would presume most Traveller fusion to be aneutronic and dealing mostly with heat whereas this would still require shielding), but able to ramp up a lot of juice on demand- and shut down entirely, except for whatever power is involved in running something a little more complicated then a nuclear damper box.

The latter quality could have stealth uses, depending on whether you think fusion plants should/could shut down.

Drawbacks, a power plant damaged or destroyed result should result in extra radiation hits, the fueling should be expensive, an ND fission reactor is likely not standard and so might not be easy to get maintained, and there might be restrictions or refusals to even let such a craft get near occupied planets/stations.

So you might have a window of advantage built in between ND intro and say TL15.

The drawbacks would likely make an 'extra power Scotty' fission reactor wholly unrealistic for civilian/commercial use, only of interest to specialized military craft- or pirates.

 

[agorski]

In T5, this might already be baked into the Tech Level Stage Effects. Note that you can't use a fission reactor for Jump.

 

[Carlobrand]

In T5, this might already be baked into the Tech Level Stage Effects. Note that you can't use a fission reactor for Jump.

Why not?

 

[agorski]

Why not?

T5.09 page 279:

A Fission Plant cannot supply power in bursts intense enough to support Jump or Hop drive (although it can support Skip Drive).

 

[Condottiere]

In Mongosian physics, it's a question of having the energy at hand, regardless of source.

Also, I recall that fissionable material is godawful expensive and has a half life of at least a year.

 

[kilemall]

In Mongosian physics, it's a question of having the energy at hand, regardless of source.

Also, I recall that fissionable material is godawful expensive and has a half life of at least a year.

This might be a technology that reduces that cost.

Half-life of U-238 is 4.468 billion years. Not feeling it, must be assuming exotics, which might be a reasonable assumption- if you didn't have ND tech.

 

[Ishmael]

T5.09 page 279:

A Fission Plant cannot supply power in bursts intense enough to support Jump or Hop drive (although it can support Skip Drive).

Are jump capacitors not a thing anymore?
Charge them over time, discharge them all at once....

I guess explosively pumped flux compression generators, such as in FF&S1 ( canon? ), are not a thing either, though it'd make a cool ship design.

 

[McPerth]

If Neutron Dampers can inhibit or induce neutron shedding, couldn't they be used to create an advanced fission technology?


Inhibited, the reactor is shut down, scrammed and fuel preserved.

Induced in a controlled manner and directed to controlled fission, the reactor could output more neutrons and thus more fission then 'naturally', and so U-238 could be used without processing and more fission generated out of less initial fuel (but maybe refueling more often).

Out there or reasonable? Play opportunities?

My initial thought is this is just the sort of thing for fighters that live fast and die young, being able to ramp up EP to power those lasers but running through fuel fast.

See that nuclear dampers are (acording CT:HG) TL12. By this TL, Fusion is quite developed, and have many advantages (more output, cheaper fuel, etc) over fission plants.

So, IMHO, what you suggest, while posible, would be quite inefficient...

 

[Baithammer]

Hook the fission plant to a High Efficiency Battery and use it to power the jump drives.

 

[kilemall]

See that nuclear dampers are (acording CT:HG) TL12. By this TL, Fusion is quite developed, and have many advantages (more output, cheaper fuel, etc) over fission plants.

So, IMHO, what you suggest, while posible, would be quite inefficient...

Hmmm. I'm sure that's the game intent or what it looks like as an outcome from our TL 7.8 perspective, but I prefer plausible gameplay options and a feel.

An example of retrotech that might occur with tech updates is steam locomotives. Old designs no they are still the cost beasts that caused railroads to switch to diesel or electric, but with updated tech and new design they might be viable for special applications or economics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_steam_technology

 

[infojunky]

An example of retrotech that might occur with tech updates is steam locomotives.

I am having visions of Radio Thermal Generator powered Steam Engines being a common sight on developing Colony worlds...

 

[Timerover51]

I am having visions of Radio Thermal Generator powered Steam Engines being a common sight on developing Colony worlds...

Getting that much PU-238 might be a bit difficult. It does not have that much heat per gram, so you would be looking at a couple of hundred kilograms of it. It would be easier to use whatever carbon-based fuels are available.

The heat output per gram is 0.568 Watts, so to get one kilowatt of heat, you will need 1.76 kilograms of PU-238. One kilowatt is equal to 1.34 horsepower, so to get a 1,000 horsepower, assuming 100% efficiency at converting the heat into usable energy, you will need over 1300 kilograms of PU-238. And that is for one locomotive. Methinks that I will stick to carbon-based fuels.

 

[kilemall]

I am having visions of Radio Thermal Generator powered Steam Engines being a common sight on developing Colony worlds...

Well, that wasn't where I was going, just a metaphor for 'some tech may be viable with different material/energy tech retrofitted', but enjoy.

 

[Carlobrand]

See that nuclear dampers are (acording CT:HG) TL12. By this TL, Fusion is quite developed, and have many advantages (more output, cheaper fuel, etc) over fission plants.

So, IMHO, what you suggest, while posible, would be quite inefficient...

I dunno, I can see some possibilities. The fuel is godawful expensive, a pain to work with since it's radioactive, and you won't find it anywhere but on a developed world of decent tech, but it does have the advantage of giving you a much denser fuel.

Near as I can figure, you could generate about an EP, 250 Mw, by "burning" about 400 kg/month of U-238 using an n-damper to accelerate its decay, assuming absolute efficiency. I'm only figuring the energy released by the U-238 decay, not any energy that might be released by decay products down the line, so you'd likely get more energy out of it than that. Expensive as Hades itself, but dense - takes up way less space than a dTon of hydrogen. Even if efficiency was low, it would still have definite possibilities for a long-term money-is-no-object kind of mission.

Pretty much anything radioactive could work as a fuel. Maybe you could use thorium instead. Might also be a way for a warship to get itself out of a fix - have a standby plant, start opening up the nuclear warheads, toss the pits in (well, gently place using robots), run up the n-damper using batteries, then turn the n-damper on the plant to generate energy.

Even if you decide the fuel mass needs to stay the same so you keep the ship at the same total mass, a ton of U-238 is about 1/270 the volume of the same mass of hydrogen so you end up with a smaller ... well, boat, since the jump drive still needs its own hydrogen. Still, useful for deep space exploration.

(Now there's an interesting thought: if your dreadnought finds itself with a dead power plant, it can place some nukes in space on timers, turn on the black globe, again likely from batteries - we're abusing the poor things, but they only need to keep it up for a moment or so - and charge the capacitors by detonating the nukes. Do a variant on the old-timer's jump-sans-power-plant.)

 

[Enoki]

For jump you need only add power storage, caps, batteries, etc. The fission plant runs a generator or three and the power is stored up until you reach what you need for a jump.
Alternately, you convert the energy made into another storable form that can be released rapidly enough to power the jump drive. You might have something like the mother of all steam plants with a pressure bottle that stores the energy then releases it into turbine that produces the necessary electrical power in "an instant" to give the jump power.

 

[kilemall]

For jump you need only add power storage, caps, batteries, etc. The fission plant runs a generator or three and the power is stored up until you reach what you need for a jump.
Alternately, you convert the energy made into another storable form that can be released rapidly enough to power the jump drive. You might have something like the mother of all steam plants with a pressure bottle that stores the energy then releases it into turbine that produces the necessary electrical power in "an instant" to give the jump power.

Heh, at one point I was trying to figure out what slapping a diesel-electric generator in a container like they use for disasters would look like, if you were stuck at a TL7 C/D/E starport and didn't want to wait for a replacement power plant.

Ugly cost in fuel space, but even worse costs in 'lifesupport'- keeping the IC aspirated would be a major strain and would require a LOT of extra oxygen and scrubbers.

 

[kilemall]

Carlo, that's true, better fission for long range exploration with no idea where the next fuel stop will be.

Ran across this discussion on the topic of uranium power generation- I can roll with the 240 megawatt 100 hour 100% theoretical, assume we improve to something like 10% effeciency as a benchmark.

https://www.quora.com/How-much-power-is-generated-from-a-kg-of-uranium

So that works out to 1 EP in 10 hours per kg.

Using the CT speculative table and extrapolating 1000kg per ton, a kg of U-238 goes for 1000 Cr.

Loading up a fighter that can generate 4 EP in 10 hours or say 2 EP for weapons charging and 1 EP for maneuver for 20 for just 4000 Cr might be acceptable.

Course an alternative is to load up a 36EP capacitor, charge it and send it on it's merry way, but that's a really short-ranged limited power solution. And capacitors are obviously touchy and not batteries.

Or you make it a fission-electric, charge up the batteries before launch then recharge between engagements.

I like assuming that shutting off most fusion plants for fuel preservation or stealth reasons would have a power cost to restart, so maybe one of these are an APU waiting for emergency startup. Or solar is onboard for recharge, but could be problematic at red dwarfs or deep space.